


Tail Spinning

by Atanih88



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Season/Series 08, Supernatural Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atanih88/pseuds/Atanih88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their own relationship suffering from high tensions and things unsaid, Sam and Dean are called in to solve the mystery of disappearing children in Maypole, Maryland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tail Spinning

Dean's brought to a stop by Sam's hand fisting in his shirt, knuckles digging into Dean's chest. Dean's already lifting his hand to Sam's, trying to tug it away when he sees Sam's face, his jaw tight, his body taut like a string and he's staring straight ahead.

The Sheriff is still breathing hard in the background; Dean can hear him trying to drag himself over the floorboards on the floor above them. He can hear him crying out his daughter's name.

But Dean's staring at the same place as Sam is.

In the corner of the room, there's a little girl standing, her back to them. She's not moving, not doing anything other than standing still and facing forward. Her long braid falls all the way down to her waist, shiny even in the dark exterior and she's wearing bright blue shorts and a white top that stand out against the dark cream of her skin.

"I think that's Dan's…" Sam doesn't finish. Out of the corner of his eye Dean sees his throat bob as he swallows but if anything, Sam's hand just tightens on Dean's shirt. "Dean. I don't think she's…"

" _Sarah!_ "

The lights flicker then, a quick flash, leaving them in the dark. The smell of blood, the air suddenly filled with the warmth of it. The light flickers one more time and then everything goes dark.

"Dean," Sam says, and Dean can feel his warmth as he presses himself closer, as if trying to make it so nothing can come between them.

Dean hears Dan upstairs, sobbing now, hacking coughs and he wonders if they'll get back up to the Sheriff in time, or if he'll bleed out on the landing, trying to get to his daughter.

That's when he feels it, like a brand of heat boring into his back. And he knows what it is, the smell of blood is all over now, surrounding him and he knows why they're down there, know why they've been allowed in.

He turns, that eerie night vision in place that now he's oddly grateful for. He locks a hand around Sam's and turns, slow and easy, trying not to trigger anything there but—he didn't have to be so careful about it.

The witch is there. She's standing by the base of the stairs and it's a wonder that he can make her out at all from the total blackness surrounding them all, but the light from upstairs slips inside enough to outline the witch's small frame.

She's tall and there's a hunch to her back but that's all they can see. Everything else about her is under shadow, nothing else that they can see. Even her dress, the way it brushes over the stained floorboards is like a fog, everywhere but leaves people unsure of where it even starts.

Then, she twitches, her arms, coming apart from the whole shape of her, like twigs when they're stepped on, snapping, jerky, no fluidity to the movement at all.

Then her hands appear from the shroud of black. They're pale, so pale they resemble the pale blue of someone dragged from an ice lake. And despite everything he's seen, Dean feels the bile rise in the back of his throat, feels his gag reflex act up as he sees what's cupped in her hand so preciously, like it's a baby bird and she's afraid if she holds it too tight, it'll crush and die.

It's a heart and the stench of it hits him in the back of the throat and makes his stomach turn over. 

And deep down, deep down, even though he knows what this means, knows it means the girl—knows Sarah's dead—he's relieved. He's relieved because he's still capable of feeling this, of being disgusted, of feeling sick to his stomach. He's relieved despite the fact that it's cost a little girl her life, just to make him feel human.

The light flickers again and for a brief moment he sees her face, distorted into something grotesque and happy and unnatural, and in another second serene and beautiful and her lips are curved like she's just seen the most beautiful thing on earth, her hair the same colour as wheat and making her delicate and young. And yet the heart is still held in her hands.

Then she's gone and the lights stay on. Where she stood is a dark spot, like a fire had burned there not too long ago.

"Sam."

"Yeah."

"You saw her." He glances at his brother and sees him still staring at the place where the witch had stood. Sam nods tightly.

Together they both turn to look back at the corner where Sarah had stood.

Her small frame is still there, her shoulders hunched just a little now, like the witch's had been. But she's still standing upright, her head still up and facing the corner of the wall.

From upstairs, they hear Dan again, though his voice isn't as strong now, but his daughter's name is still there, weak, but he repeats over and over again.

The girl—Sarah—stands there, not a sound coming from her.

Dean doesn't look back at her. Instead he starts towards the stairs.

"Dean—"

"She's dead. You know she's dead."

"The Sheriff will want to see—" 

Dean stops at the stairs, realises he's gone around the spot where the witch had stood and stares down at the floor. He doesn't like having his back to the girl. It makes him feel vulnerable, even though he's sure that she's not going to be going out there.

He thinks of what might happen if they go to her, put a hand on her, try and see if they can help. He likes to think he can't add to his nightmares, but that's bullshit he tells himself just so he can look Sam in the eye after another fuck up.

"Sam. Is it gonna make it any better? Him seeing her? Listen to him." He doesn't want to look at Sam, doesn't want to see whatever guilt or pain he'll see there. He doesn't think he can take it.

Because he's tired. He's tired too. But unlike Sam—there's not much else that he's good for. It's too late for him. So Dean'll take what he can get. The best he can do is try not to take his brother down with him.

"Will it help, Sam?" he asks again, voice hard.

There's a moment of silence. He can hear Sam breathing, can feel how close Sam is to turning around, to doing the best that he can to help—but then he's stepping around Dean instead, climbing up the stairs, the wood creaking from his weight as he makes his way back up without once looking back down.

Dean doesn't say anything else, just follows instead.

When they reach the top, Dan looks up at them.

He's sprawled on the floor, blood oozing from his mouth, sticky and mixed with spit, pooling underneath his chin where he lies.

His eyes are red as he rolls them up to look at them.

"Where is she?" his voice is hoarse, Dean thinks it's taking all the man has left to get the words out. But his fingers are clawed into the rotting floorboards, like he's battle ready despite the fact that he can't even stand up.

Sam tenses up next to him.

A scream echoes inside the house, travels all the way through it, shaking its foundations and Dean doesn't know whether it's coming from the basement they've just left or the second floor of the house. But it's enough for Dan, whose eyes open wide, the red being overtaken by the whites of his eyes.

"Sarah," he rasps, "that's my Sarah—what," he breaks into a coughing fit, more blood spattering the floor and he presses his forehead against the floor, hands fisting at his sides as they wrack his body. "What—" cough, "what are you waiting for?"

The scream comes again.

Dean closes his eyes on it. The guilt starts anew, an entirely new hole being pried open in his chest. He opens them again when he hears Sam speak, calm, gentle—full of grief for something that isn't his fault.

"Dan." Sam lowers himself to the ground, resting one big hand on Dan's shoulder. "We have to get you out of here."

"No!" Dan tries to drag himself further, towards the steps. "Why didn't you bring her up? I can _hear_ her. That's my little girl—why aren't you doing what you're supposed to—go—"

" _Dan_." Sam's voice snaps out whip sharp and Dan stops where he is, heaving, every breath wet and laboured. "It's too late."

He starts shaking his head. "No, _no_. Not my little girl— _Sarah!_ "

~

Dan Stevens isn't a young man. He sits across the desk from Sam and Dean and his stare is sharp, gunmetal grey. The lines of his life are etched right there for everyone to see, carved around his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the firmness of his jaw that juts out just a little as he takes them in. His hair is a white blond—though it doesn't look like that has anything to do with his age. His Sheriff's uniform is spotless; all ironed out and fitted well, the gold star on his chest gleaming. On his desk, there's a picture of a woman and a little girl, neither of them looking at the camera, focused instead on the water swirling around their ankles. Dean can't see their faces.

The silence is broken only by the stuttered whirring of the fan. It's seen better days. 

The windows are open but that doesn't help much. The sun is a hot spot in the sky, its light stark and unforgiving as it streams in through the window. It has him sweating and for a moment his mind drifts off, remembers the cooler in the back of the Impala and ice cold beer that would always hit the spot on a day just like this. And then he glances at Sam, at the way he's sitting, up right, leaning just a little in the direction of the Sheriff. He's within an arm's touching distance.

It doesn't feel like it.

On the desk, there are five pictures, each of a child. 

"I don't think I need to tell you that I'm finding it hard… having to ask for help from… people with such a _questionable_ profession," the Sheriff says. 

His eyes flicking between him and Sam, lingering on Dean in clear distrust—Dean doesn't flinch, he's gotten quite a few of those looks lately, like someone's expecting him to turn around and off the next person who so much as looks at him wrong. 

Not always from people he doesn't give a shit about. 

He shuts that thought right down and tilts his head back just a little, closes his mouth on telling the man where he can shove his opinion. He waits.

He's learned patience, has honed it. Doesn't always get him what he wants, but it usually leads to him getting someone's head on a platter and that's usually the bad guy's. 

So he'll shut up. He'll listen. Then he can tell the Sheriff where to shove it when it's all over.

"But," and that mask of strength, that rigidity leaks away for a second, falters and the Sheriff's fingers tighten on the armrests of his chair, his eyes falling to the faces staring up at them from the desk, "this town's lost enough in the past few weeks. I want this to stop here and Mills has put in a good word for you." The man clears his throat. "Says you know how to deal with this kind of—thing."

At his side, Sam nods, face earnest. "Yes sir." 

It's not quite the face he'd worn, back in the day, not as innocent, not as reassuring, like Sam's seen too much now to be able to fully invest himself in other people again, in their pain. Because Sam knows there's some things just can't be changed and that they can't make anything better. But maybe they can make it not get any worse.

Two boys, three girls. All between the ages of six and seven. All residents of the small town of Maypole, Maryland.

~

They stay in town, more as a precaution than anything else. If people are seeing and hearing things, then they need to be seeing and hearing those same things too.

Still, they hadn't been given much to go on, Dean thinks as he steps back from the wall, papers carefully stuck to the wall with duct tape. The wallpaper's too nice and Dean had gone out of his way to make sure he didn't ruin it.

This house—mansion more like—reminds him of that time, the time Sam had made him promise to stop him. Sam sitting there, clingy and gone on whiskey.

This place has the same feel as that old inn. All old world charm, a standing heirloom of Maypole, beds large and neatly made, rooms huge with comfortable armchairs. This one even has a fireplace. Times are hard everywhere and the room is costing them a lot less than if it would have, if it had been during tourist season. It helps that they're there at the Sheriff's request and he's the one who'd suggested they stay there. The owner hadn't looked too impressed when he'd walked in with Sam. But they'd been doing this for long enough that they knew what those looks were about.

The room is plain but clean, the old elegant comfort present only in the lamp by the beds, the grand curtains pinned to the wall, a rich burgundy colour. There's an en suite, shiny and clean and Dean finds himself glancing at the shower appreciatively, looks forward to letting it wash the tension from his back later.

Dean's sitting on the end of the bed; hands curved around the edges of the mattress either side of him. Eyes focused on the wall. Skipping from image to image. The children's faces, the photos of the recurring things at each crime scene.

From the reports, the dogs brought in to scent them out had lost the trail at the edge of the forest.

"Nothing suspicious about that…" Dean mutters, getting up with a protest from the bed springs to stand in front of them.

Four children gone. Emmy, Alan, Rosemary, Brigit and Jake.

Jake had been the last one to disappear, a little kid of six, dark skin and big brown eyes and a wide smile that had more teeth missing at the front than anything else.

Dean's staring at his face when the door clicks open behind him. It's followed by the familiar rhythm of Sam's steps and the crinkle of bags. 

"Garth called yet?" Sam asks.

Dean looks at him over his shoulder, arms crossed over his chest. "Not yet. Not like we've got much to go on right now." He nods his head over at the pictures and reports spread out over the wall as Sam puts the bag down on the bed and shrugs off his jacket, takes the time to go and hang it over the back of a chair. "You get a look at the reports?" he asks.

Sam picks up the brown paper bag and walks over to Dean, taking out one of the boxes of Chinese takeaway and handing it to Dean. "Yeah, got a look at them while you were out." His mouth flattens on 'out'. Dean doesn't comment, just plucks the chopsticks out of the bag when Sam tilts it towards him without looking at Dean, eyes on the wall now.

Right. Because of course Sam would've woken up during another of his Benny calls. Of course.

Dean does what he does best. He evades. "See the little bundles of joy left at the parents' doors?"

Sam makes a face, mouth twitching into something resembling a bitchy line. It's so close to the familiar expression and yet that doesn't happen as much anymore. Who knew there'd be a day where Dean would actually miss that.

_Yeah, you knew._

"Report said it was pig hearts. Nothing else found on it. Although the way the branches were worked together, they were pretty intricate patterns. Like basket weaving. It was made with care." 

"Nice. I'm sure the parents loved it, a real nice memento."

Sam snaps his mouth shut and shrugs. "Something we could still look into, if it was some kind of speciality here in the town at some point. Never know."

"I guess. Talk to any of the locals?"

"A couple."

"Anything good?"

Sam drags over a chair and sits down, mixing up the noodles. The smell of shrimp fills the room and makes Dean's mouth waters. He walks back over to the bed, tugs two beers out of the mini cooler they'd brought in with them and feels something he hadn't know was there, lodged just a little too tight between his shoulder blades, ease, when Sam takes the slippery bottle from his hand. He settles back on the bed and starts in on his own food.

"Not much. But I asked about those names the Sheriff gave us."

"Oh," Dean nods, face carefully blank, keeping the smartass comments in. Tension's bad enough and it's making his food go down wrong. No wonder everyone in these places thinks they're screwing if this is the kind of atmosphere they drag around with them. Has marriage problems written all over it. He'd be cracking jokes himself.

Dean leaves the chopsticks in and just rests his hand on his knee for a second, not touching the food. "You mean the _loco_ lady?"

Sam snorts a little, shoves a tangle of noodles in his mouth, waits until he swallows to continue. "Her name's Daisy Martin. Owns a bakery in the town centre. She'll be closing up shop around three." He stops to take a swig of the beer and flicks a glance at the watch on his wrist. "Gives us about an hour or so before we head over?"

"Sure." Dean goes back to staring at the pictures and they finish the rest of their meal in silence, the silence stretching, their eyes down on their food, discomfort fringing the edges.

The pictures aren't gruesome. No blood left behind, nothing. Their bedrooms were left untouched, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, from the reports and the pictures it looks like they just disappeared right out of their beds. If it weren't for the dogs tracking their scent away from there, there was nothing to show that the children had even left the house.

He looks over the teddy bears, the rainbow of colours and patterns that kind of make Dean wince. Do kids really need that much crap on their bed? He's glaring at a particularly offensive shade of vivid orange when something catches his eye, right at the corner of the picture.

It's an absent minded kind of thing. No one was focusing on it when they took the picture. A drawing. It's on the corner of the pink desk. But the colours—for a kid with a room like that, doom and gloom doesn't seem like it'd be right.

"Hey Sam," he puts the food down and gets up, wiping his hands on his jeans as he walks up close to the wall and squints at it.

"What?"

Sam comes up behind him, peering over his shoulder and wiping at his mouth. 

Dean squints some more, then eases back, head coming up as he deciphers the drawing all but drowned out in the artificial cheeriness of the room. He touches a finger to it. "You see that?"

He feels the press of Sam's chest against his arm, wonders briefly how it is that Sam always feels like a walking furnace. Like a damn dog. It settles something in Dean though, to have it close. 

Conditioning, probably. A lifetime of having it around.

He wonders what it'd be like if he didn't have it ever again. Not just for a year, or a few months while one of them is toughing it out in another god forsaken plane. But just—not having it because that's the way they decided it should be.

"Think it's a woman?" Sam says, hunching his huge frame to get a good look and Dean let's his thoughts go, focuses on the task at hand as he takes another swig from his bottle. "It's just a figure in black but, I know it's rough," he traces the lines of the lower part of the figure, "looks like it could be a long skirt. Kind of morbid for a six or seven year old."

Dean cocks his head and looks at the others.

"I'm thinking the same goes for all of them. Sammy, look." 

And yeah. They're there, glimpses of it. One isn't even drawn on paper but onto a little corner of wall, another one drawn in green colouring pencil, thin rickety lines carving the colour into the wooden board at the end of the canopied bed. 

A house, a person and a tree.

"Dean—look at this one. Do you see that?" Sam's moving in front of him, pointing to a photo above the one from Jake's room. It's the one with the green drawing on the bed. Sam's pointing at a spot on the floor, just at the foot of the bed.

Scratches, deep enough to have left three grooves on the ground, splinters sticking up from it in little spikes.

"Yeah," he says, "I see it. Is it mentioned anywhere in the reports?"

"No," Sam let's his hand drop back to his side, "no, but—I swear." He's frowning at the picture, half pointing at it, eyes narrowed on it in concentration. "Dean, I've seen that somewhere before. Like a photo or something, really old. You know?"

Dean glances from Sam and back to the markings. They've seen plenty of markings over the years. To Dean, this is just another one. "Not ringing any bells, Sam."

"Yeah, no, I—" Sam shakes his head. "I'm positive I've…" He folds his lips together, gets this pinched look on his face. Then he's pulling out his phone from his back pocket, thumb flying over the keys. He holds it up and the flash has Dean seeing spots for a few seconds, the hand he half raised in protest too late to do anything about it.

"What? One copy ain't enough; you want to look at the bedroom where the leprechaun threw up a little more?"

At least that gets a glare sent his way, something a little more like the banter they used to have and Dean grins a little. 

"I'm sending it to _Garth_ ," Sam says, a little too pointedly, a little irritated, a lot exasperated.

Dean's grin fades a little at that and he frowns at that. "That will never not sound wrong."

~

Dean isn't the only one sneaking phone calls and messages.

He's noticed how Sam huddles over his laptop, back to the wall so Dean won't see. But Dean's not as bad at all this as he used to be and he manages to pull up the pages Sam has been looking at non-stop.

Sam had never told him she was a vet.

The amount of information Sam has on her and what she's been doing, the camera's he's tapped into. It makes Dean regret having looked in the first place and leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth. The worst thing is that he doesn't feel guilty for it, checking up on his brother this way.

Instead he nurses a beer and looks out the window, eyes fixed on the town's church just a few streets over. 

That night, they have the window open. The heat is a thick layer, pressing down on his skin and Dean's sleeping with the covers thrown off, lying down on his stomach, face turned away from his brother and focused instead on the empty sky. Only the street light from outside lends a little light to the night.

He asks. He asks because although he's good at ignoring what's right in front of him, he doesn't want to be blindsided by anything, wants to know it's coming. Wants to prepare. Sooner or later it'll happen. That's just how things go down.

Sam's a silent, even breathing presence on the other side of the room. He's got the light on, Dean knows, has the information Garth sent over spread over the bed. Dean can hear him leafing through the journal, carefully. The scritch of pencil on paper, quick notes.

His lips feel dry, a little cracked when he speaks. Another side effect of the heat.

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

But the words get stuck. Like they usually do. So he closes his eyes, buries his face in the pillow. "Nothing. Wake me up if you find something."

There's a beat of silence. "Okay."

_You gonna see her again?_

Dean thinks he knows the answer.

~

It doesn't take them long to figure out.

Sabrina Maypole, a descendant of the town's founders. She'd been a governess, her house a small modest thing a little ways from town where she cared for her sick brother and taught the children of the town. Hung, when the children she taught started coming back looking drawn and quiet, refusing to talk about what happened in her lessons.

The town strung her up, left her swinging in the breeze on the tree in front of her home and razed her it to the ground. Not bad.

But they either underestimated what she was, or they didn't bother giving her a proper burial, because her body wasn't still hanging from the tree the next day.

According to legend anyway. 

Or you know—local old crazy, Daisy Martin.

She's in her fifties and she's leaning against the door frame of the bakery's back entrance. She's got her small white bag swung over her shoulder. Her hair is peppered with grey, her skin soft and wrinkled at her elbows and neck, the sagging skin beneath her eyes holds a bit of a green tinge.

She smells of flour and citrus and smoke.

Old enough to be Dean's grandma and grandma's got arms of steel and chain smokes like nobody's business, a lifetime of working with her hands and arms, the strength of the upper body showing in the firm muscle of her biceps.

She reaches up to adjust her glasses and blows another stream of smoke in their direction. 

Dean sees the way the corner of Sam's mouth twitches, the quick but unnoticeable step back he takes just so he won't be hit with it.

"If you ask me, she nabbed those children alright. They don't remember," she says, shaking her cigarette hand at them like they've done something wrong and she's the school teacher sent to tell them where to go, "that's what happened back in 1892 but does anyone believe me? This town is full of fools."

"Wait." Sam stops frowning and steps back up. "1892?"

Dean just arcs his eyebrows at that one. "Really? You were there for an incident in 1892?" 

The look Sam shoots him keeps his next comment about fossils from coming out. But come on. Nut jobs—that's one thing they _don’t_ need right now.

"Daisy, if you don't mind my asking, how would you know about something that took place in 1892?" Sam asks. And man, he's putting those puppy eyes to work, all innocent boy charm.

It makes Dean feel bad-touched all over when it works a little too well and she grins appreciatively, all yellowed teeth and a gaunt wrinkled face giving them both a once-over. And he's given enough of those himself to know what they mean.

A shower. He wants a shower after this.

"You two really are a pair of handsome boys. But that's not all there is to it, is it?" She takes a drag of her smoke and glances between the two of them. Her eyes are a watery blue, almost colourless and they make Dean's skin crawl as they keep flitting between him and Sam. He wonders if she's on something. "You ain't queer are you?"

Yeah, that's it. "Look, lady. How about you just tell us what you know, and we'll be on our way. How does that sound?"

Yeah, Daisy doesn't like that tone much. She rights herself, working that hunch from her shoulders and standing up as tall as she can. The corners of her mouth pinch together. "No manners these days. I'm _talking_ about the massacre. My nana told me. Good number of children ended up dead, found in the forest all strung up on some tree. No one talks about it, but no one goes into the woods either. Wanted to cover it up for the sake of the town, help it prosper," she snorts, "that's what you get. Everyone locking their doors at night and pretending they don't see her."

"Don't see who?"

"That Maypole girl. She's the one doing all of this. You mark my words. She's gonna take all the children in this damn town. I've warned them. They can't see it, but that's how it'll end." And with that she tosses the remainder of her cigarette on the floor, crushes it under the heel of her shoe and begins her slow descent to the main road, leaving Sam and Dean standing there and staring after her.

For a moment there's not much he can say. So, he settles for. "I feel violated. Did you see the fuck-me eyes she was giving us?"

Sam makes a choking sound that borders on gagging and that makes Dean feel a little better.

~

The house isn't as hard to find as they expect it to be.

They're a world of their own, the woods. As they trek through the barely there trails, it's like they enter their own little bubble. The leaves are out in lush, vivid green and the bushes and flowers cover almost all the visible trails, making it easy to lead someone astray. Their surroundings are oddly spherical, rounding out at the edges of Dean's eyesight and he has to blink over and over to keep his eyes from watering.

"It's a little quiet, don't you think?" Sam asks. He's walking a little ahead of Dean, gaze sweeping their surroundings.

Dean nods. The sound, like everything else, is warped. Like their ears popped and sounds can't make it through properly.

The clearing is unexpected. It's like the trees have grown in that direction, curved almost protectively around the area. It gets even quieter.

Unlike in the town centre, the air here is different. Feels thinner as he breathes it in, colder on the back of his throat. He tightens his hand on his gun and tucks his left into his jacket, feels for the weapon he has tucked in there. His little memento from Purgatory. Sam's taking up a similar position up ahead, stepping out first, body lowered, long legs bent at the knees and gun in his hands, arms locked in position as he sweeps the place.

The house is a husk. Dean's surprised there's still so much of it there actually, considering what local legend says about it being burnt down.

What little they can see of the walls, is charred black, two floors of it. The roof is gone and moss has grown in over time, covering about 90% of what's left standing. The structure of the windows still stands too, but they look more like empty sockets on a skull than anything else. Dean can see the sky on the other side when he looks through them.

It doesn't take long to round the house. No doubt it hasn't been inhabited, not by anything human anyway, not for a long time.

"Hey. I found the tree."

Dean throws one last look at the house before rounding it and finding Sam, gun hand at his side, by the tree in question.

It's a big one, with a twisted up trunk and roots all over the place above ground, like tentacles peeking up out of water. It's gnarled; branches black as soot, and out of them, spring little heart shaped leaves the colour of a smooth burgundy wine. It's a shock of contrast against the background of green.

But that's not what captures his attention.

Dean moves closer, eyes narrowed; hand still tight on the heavy weapon he's pulled out, even if he's already tucked away his gun.

"Are those _names_?" he asks, incredulous.

Sam nods, jaw working tight. He lowers himself to his haunches and reaches with his hand, fingertips just brushing over the crude carvings.

"They're all different—different styles of writing."

Dean stops, the meaning of it sinking like a stone in his stomach. He clenches his hand tighter around the weapon, ignores the strain on his palm as he stares down at the tree.

"The children wrote it," he says, though it's not necessary. They both know it. "So what? She's keeping a little something to remember them by, that it?"

"Dean." This time Sam's voice is a little quieter. He stays where he is, eyes focused on a specific spot. Dean rubs a hand over his face—wonders if it's fair that even after all the places he's been, this still feels like a punch to the gut, that kids have just been taken and—

He shakes his head, tries to make himself let it go as he lowers himself next to Sam.

Sam turns to look at him. "Look at the last couple of names."

Emmy, Alan, Rosemary, Brigit and Jake.

~

Dan doesn't look too impressed as he shuts the door behind them and gestures for them to sit down.

"So let me get this straight, you're telling me, that a woman that's been dead since the 1800's is taking kids." He moves to sit on the desk, folding his arms across his chest and glaring down at them.

"Look. Believe what you want. They're being taken. And she's the reason why. Now, you wanna hear us out or you are gonna call for a bus to send us to the loony bin?" Dean snaps, because he's not in the mood for this crap. He leans forward, stares the man right in the eye. "Because I guarantee you that if we don't do something about this, then it won't be long before _your_ daughter's the one being taken. Did you think of that Sheriff?"

At his side, Sam stiffens but doesn't say anything.

~

Turns out, that when a child gets taken, the house comes alive.

The woods change in the hours of the night, the light green of day becomes shadowed, shadows that whisper and dance as they walk past them and Dean feels like there are eyes on the back of his head.

They're shoving them out of the way though, palms scraping against branches that are sharp and tearing at their clothes where they hadn't been on their first trip here.

The house, when it comes into view, is a whole different house. Everything is in place, the roof on it making it tower high enough that the tip of it brushes the red leaves of the tree.

Sam stops at Dean's side, both of them looking up at the house. Every light in the place is on.

And from where they stand, can hear the Sheriff's shouts.

~

"I thought we agreed we'd stop with all this crap?"

Dean looks up from the guns he's cleaning. It's slow, methodical work and once he picks up a rhythm, it helps, eases his mind and lets him regroup. 

He doesn't use his guns much these days. Purgatory does that to a person. It peels back the last remaining skin of humanity, nothing but a thin, fragile membrane anyway. Then it shoves what's left of the person, forward, raw and foaming at the mouth like nothing more than a rabid dog fighting for the last scrap of food, mindless and itching for blood under its nails.

At least the blood lust has subsided. Not like the blood lust he had felt before, during his brief crossover into actual monster. No, this one was a human blood lust—but so much more vicious. Cold blooded. The need to tear things up with his whole body behind it though, yeah, that still remains.

So yeah, the gun cleaning helps. For better or worse, it humanizes him, makes him feel like he's okay, like he hasn't changed too much.

It's all bullshit. He still does it anyway.

"Dean?"

Dean stops, rests the gun pieces back on the table and turns. Sam's on the floor. The drawings that had been in evidence are on the floor at his side, along with one of Campbell's journals. It had taken them a while to locate which one had it, but it had been there, one of the pages, a photo clipped to it with the scratches, claws long and skinny cutting through the wood of a door.  


_Claw(s)? Scratches in wood._  
Last seen, 1892?

The actual photo dated to a date in November 1997. Three children had disappeared from Maypole that year, but it hadn't been like this. The disappearances had been fewer and further between. But the same thing. Drawings in red and brown of a house, a tree and a figure enshrouded in black, and a merry little package left on the family's door step, a pig's heart sitting neatly in a hand woven basket.

Chain-smoking creeper grandma had been right.

" _Dean_."

" _What_ , Sam?" Dean looks back up at his brother, taking his eyes from the worn pages of the open diary.

Sam stares at him for a moment then sighs, looking away, hand coming up to comb his hair back from his face. He's got his legs folded up and he's leaning back on the bed, but instead of looking relaxed, it's almost like he's trying to curl up on himself—too much on the defensive.

"I know you saw the stuff I'm tracking on Amelia."

For a second, Dean isn't quite sure what to say. They don't do this. Well. Not often anyway. Call each other out on the things they don't talk about. Oh, they hint at it, nudge at it, try and get it out but—never so close in heels to having gotten what they think, out on the open. This makes Dean want to ease away, turn his back.

He doesn't do it, at least not physically. He keeps his face carefully blank. "What you do is up to you. Won't deny it wasn’t a little creepy, but, like I said, your business Sammy."

Sam doesn't say anything, just watches as Dean picks his gun back up and goes back to cleaning it.

That's when the Sheriff rings, the phone buzzing along the table and cutting through the silence. There's an instant roll of his stomach, dread a slippery slide down his back.

Dean snatches it the phone up.

"What can I do for you Sheriff?"

~

"Seal it, then torch it." Garth says, voice blaring out of the phone they have between them on the table.

Dean pauses in the process of taking a bite out of his burger. He feels a dawning horror at the background noise, making him want to plug his ears.

Sam is blinking down at the phone too. "Seal it?"

"If burning doesn't take it down, then the seal will keep it in. Idjits."

Dean's still too horrified to even roll his eyes. He glances at Sam for support, waving his burger around and mouthing 'what?'

Sam straightens himself up in the chair, eyebrows doing this complicated 'I'm confused' and 'what is wrong with you' expression.

"Garth, why are you listening to Busta Rhymes?"

On the other side, Garth makes a noise which Dean is pretty sure sounds enthusiastic. 

So Dean drops the call before an explanation can be heard.

~

The thing with letting someone down is that it lodges right in Dean's throat. Another stone that can't quite be swallowed down because there are too many others before it still blocking the way.

So yeah, Dean hates letting people down. Even those who have never known him and that he helps anyway because—because that's what he's always done, been taught to do. Dean is supposed to have people's backs.

But his life doesn't work that way.

~

The last one had been missing for five days, the first one, for what was coming up to five weeks. Just gone, no trail, no nothing. Just up and disappeared all of a sudden, like someone had rubbed off their tiny existence with an eraser and just left the canvas of their lives behind.

"We understand," Sam says, and now he leans forward a little more, hands clasped together, elbows resting on his knees. Dean is surprised he even managed to fold himself into the tiny chair. 

They're so small they have Dean wondering if all the crimes in this town are committed by little old ladies and their handbags of destruction.

"Sheriff," he goes on, voice coaxing but firm, "why call for us?"

For some reason, the Sheriff eyeballs Dean after that question and Dean shrugs at him, leaning further back in his chair and nodding at him. "You said yourself you don't want us sniffing around your turf. You probably don't trust outsiders much," he shrugs, "you definitely don't trust us. That's fine. I get it. So why call?"

The Sheriff sighs, the sound heavy and another chink of his armour disappears with it. His posture changes, shoulders drooping and his weight sinking further back. "Some of the locals… have reported strange sightings. Certain noises. All on the nights of the disappearances." He moves suddenly, movements a little too rough, as he yanks open a drawer on the desk and pulls some files out, reaching across the desk to hand them over. Sam takes one and hands the other folder over to Dean, opening his one right away, gaze flicking over the first page. Dean leaves his on his lap.

"There was a similar case a while back," the Sheriff says.

Sam nods, hunched over the open files resting on his thighs. His hair is as long as Dean has ever seen it, brushing his jaw and covering half of Sam's face from him. "When, exactly?" he asks.

Sam flips the file shut without looking at the rest of it, focus completely on the Sheriff now. "And what happened?"

"A bunch of kids from town disappeared. Not much was found. Same thing happened in Burkitsville on the other side. Some," he stops and rubs a hand over his face, "some things, some of the children's belongings were found when the search parties combed through the woods but, there was nothing else found."

"So, you're saying they vanished," Dean says, glances down at the smiling pictures, milk teeth and baby fat, "like these kids."

"That's what I'm saying."

Dean turns to look at Sam but Sam's eyes are fixed on the pictures on the table. Dean ignores the stab, the out of sync feel that is present now more often than not when it comes to them. 

He turns back to the Sheriff, wonders what the police department has against blinds when the smallest of shifts brings the light right into his eyes.

"Give us what you got. We'll see what we can do."

"I'd appreciate that. I've got a daughter too. I don't want any more of these folks going through this."

"Stopping things like this, is what _we_ do."

~

They stop it. Just not in time.

~

Dean stares at the place where it burns down, Sam close enough to him that their arms brush. The flames lick at the leaves of the tree above it, setting the heart shapes in flames.

"We should go," Sam says, voice quiet, shuffling closer, chest pressing to Dean's shoulder.

Dean glances back at him, confused for a second, it's been a while, since this has felt like them. But with Sam at his back, he nods.

"We couldn't have gotten him out of there," Sam says.

The blaze of the fire feels hot against the back of his neck. But then Dean thinks that maybe that's just Sam, being close by.

"I know."

He knows.

It doesn't make any difference.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for the 2012 SPN Reverse Bang, for Midnightheir's art prompt.
> 
> Hello, thanks so much for reading.
> 
> Claims this year felt very different from RBB, but I was lucky to get one of my top three choices. I had a lot planned for this fic, a long fic, a properly written Gen case-fic. I was drawn to the prompt because of the very Tim Burton feel it had to it and I was so excited about the possibilities. was lovely, fully supportive of my ideas and just as enthusiastic!
> 
> Things don't always work out as planned though and instead, this is the fic that has been the end result. It was intended to be a darker themed fic, focused on a loose interpretation of The Blair Witch Project and the Cade Merril YA books. Again - really didn't come out that way. It became a little more at trying to show the disconnection between Sam and Dean that I'm feeling this season - not sure how that came out though lol. I wanted to play around with the feel of the choppiness of the Blair Witch Project and the similar way that 8.04 Bitten handled the footage. I'm not sure if this helped the fic or not though.
> 
> I hope the fic was still interesting. This time round, the RBB was definitely a challenge, more due to outside influences than anything to do with the RBB itself, so I'm glad I managed to end up with a finished product at all. If you've read this far, I really appreciate it.
> 
> Thanks guys ♥


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